Eileen Collins

Her father's ancestors came to America from County Cork in Ireland in the mid-1800s, settling in Pennsylvania and Elmira, New York.

She had three siblings: an older brother, a younger sister, and a younger brother.

Her father served in the US Navy in the Pacific Theater during World War II.

After the war he managed the family bar, then became a surveyor.

Her parents separated when she was young, and her mother took a job as a stenographer at the Elmira Correctional Facility.

As a child, Collins was shy and needed speech therapy for her stutter.

She joined the Girl Scouts.

She expressed an early interest in becoming a pilot, subscribing to Air Force Magazine and reading books about World War II-era military aviators such as Fate Is the Hunter and God Is My Co-Pilot.

Collins attended St. Patrick's School in Elmira up to the eighth grade and then Notre Dame High School, a Catholic high school, but was unhappy there.

Eileen Marie Collins (born 19 November 1956) is a retired NASA astronaut and United States Air Force (USAF) colonel.

A former flight instructor and test pilot, Collins was the first woman to pilot the Space Shuttle and the first to command a Space Shuttle mission.

Eileen Marie Collins was born in Elmira, New York, on 19 November 1956.

Her parents were James Edward Collins and his wife Rose Marie O'Hara.

The family home was badly damaged by flooding caused by Hurricane Agnes in June 1972, and with finances tight, she was able to convince her mother to allow her to transfer to Elmira Free Academy, a public high school.

After graduating from Elmira Free Academy in 1974, Collins considered enlisting in the US Air Force, but her father was adamantly opposed.

In 1975, the United States Air Force (USAF) changed its policy to allow women to train as pilots, although only for non-combat missions.

A graduate of Corning Community College, where she earned an associate degree in mathematics in 1976, and Syracuse University, where she graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree in mathematics and economics in 1978, Collins was commissioned as an officer in the USAF through Syracuse's Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps program.

She was one of four women chosen for Undergraduate Pilot Training at Vance Air Force Base, Oklahoma.

After earning her pilot wings, she stayed on at Vance for three years as a T-38 Talon instructor pilot before transitioning to the C-141 Starlifter at Travis Air Force Base, California.

Instead, she attended Corning Community College, where she earned an associate degree in mathematics in 1976.

She then entered Syracuse University, which she chose because it had an Air Force Reserve Officer Training Corps (AFROTC) program.

The first ten women chosen for pilot training in September 1976 were all serving Air Force officers with four-year college degrees.

They graduated in September 1977.

Collins noted their names and followed their progress and subsequent careers with interest, hoping to soon follow in their footsteps.

Six weeks after graduating from Corning, Collins reported to Rickenbacker Air Force Base for her basic training.

Women had different fitness standards from men, but Collins was granted permission to do the morning run with the men, who had to run 12 furlong in less than 12 minutes.

The training included classes on the history of the USAF and the theory of flight, a ride in a Fairchild C-123 Provider and a flight in a Cessna T-37 Tweet with an instructor.

She took flying lessons in a Cessna 150 at Elmira Corning Regional Airport, eventually flying solo, but did not have time to complete all the requirements for a private pilot license.

In January 1978, Collins received orders to report to Offutt Air Force Base upon graduation from Syracuse, to become a computer systems engineer.

During the American invasion of Grenada in October 1983, her aircraft flew troops of the 82nd Airborne Division from Pope Air Force Base in North Carolina to Grenada, and took thirty-six medical students back.

From 1986 to 1989, she was an assistant professor in mathematics and a T-41 instructor pilot at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado.

She earned a Master of Science degree in operations research from Stanford University in 1986, and a Master of Arts degree in space systems management from Webster University in 1989.

That year, she became the second woman pilot to attend the USAF Test Pilot School, graduating with class 89B.

In 1990, Collins was selected to be a pilot astronaut with NASA Astronaut Group 13.

She flew the Space Shuttle as the pilot of the 1995 STS-63 mission, which involved a space rendezvous between and the Russian space station Mir.

She was also the pilot for STS-84 in 1997.

She became the first woman to command a US spacecraft with STS-93, which launched in July 1999 and deployed the Chandra X-Ray Observatory.

In 2005 she commanded STS-114, NASA's "return to flight" mission after the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster, to test safety improvements and resupply the International Space Station (ISS).

During this mission she became the first astronaut to fly the Space Shuttle orbiter through a complete 360-degree pitch maneuver so astronauts aboard the ISS could take photographs of its belly to ensure there was no threat from debris-related damage during re-entry.

She retired from the USAF in January 2005 with the rank of colonel, and from NASA in May 2006.